Louis Couperus - Inevitable

And with her head on Cornélie’s shoulder, and her eyes still full of tears, she seemed to be asking only for a little friendship, a little kindness, a few words of affection and cherishing, the rich American child, who now bore the name of an ancient Italian dynasty. And Cornélie felt for her, because she was suffering, because she was only a small human being whose lifeline happened to cross hers. She wrapped her arms round her, she comforted her — the weeping princess — as if with a new friendship: she took her into her life as a friend, no longer as a little person. And when Urania, with a wide stare, recalled Cornélie’s warning, Cornélie interrupted her, and said that she, Urania, must have more courage. She had tact, innate tact. But she must be brave, must face up to life …

They got up, and at the open window, arms round each other, they looked out. The bells of the cathedral pealed through the air; the cathedral rose noble and proud above the low writhing mass of roofs, a gigantic cathedral for such a little town: an immense symbol of the power of spiritual authorities over the reverently kneeling town of roofs. And the awe that had filled Cornélie in the courtyard, among the arcades, statues and fountains, filled her again, because a fame and grandeur, dying, yet not dead, in decay but not yet consumed, seemed to rise in dusky shadows from the blue of the lake, from the centuries-old structure of the cathedral, along the orange-covered hills to the castle, where a foreign young woman stood and felt disheartened, but whose millions were required by this shadow of greatness in order to survive for a few more generations …

It is beautiful and exalted, so much past, thought Cornélie. It is great … But it is something more. It is a ghost. Because it has gone, it has all gone, it is all just a memory of proud nobles, of narrow-minded souls, who do not look to the future … And the future, with a tangle of social conundrums, with the waving of new banners and streamers, then swirled in the long spirals of light, which, like blue question marks, shimmered before her eyes between the lake and the sky.

CORNÉLIE HAD CHANGED and left her room. She walked down the corridor and saw no one. She did not know the way, but kept on walking; suddenly, in front of her, a wide staircase led downwards, between two rows of giant marble candelabras, and Cornélie found herself in an atrium that opened onto the lake: the wall panels with frescos by Mantegna — depicting the deeds of the San Stefanos — arched up to a cupola painted with sky and clouds so that it appeared to be open, and where cherubs and nymphs gathered around a balustrade to look down.

She went outside and saw Gilio. He was sitting on the balustrade of the terrace, smoking a cigarette and looking out at the lake. Now he came towards her.

“I was almost certain you would come this way. Aren’t you tired? Can I show you around? Have you seen our Mantegnas? They have suffered greatly. They were restored at the beginning of this century. Yes, they’re in a sorry state, aren’t they? Do you see the little mythological scene above, by Giulio Romano? Come here, through this gate. But it’s locked. Wait …”

He called outside to someone down below. After a while an old servant brought a heavy bunch of keys and handed it to the prince.

“Off you go, Egisto! I know the keys.”

The man went. The prince opened a heavy bronze door. He pointed out the reliefs to her.

“Giovanni da Bologna,” he said.

They went on, through a room with arazzi , tapestries on the walls; the prince pointed out the ceiling by Ghirlandaio: the apotheosis of the only pope in the San Stefano family. Then through a room with mirrors, painted by Mario de’ Fiori. The dusty dankness of a poorly maintained museum, shrouded in a haze of neglect and indifference, made it hard to breathe; the white silk drapes were yellow with age and fouled by flies; the red top curtains of Venetian damask were threadbare and moth-eaten; the painted mirrors were weathered and dulled; the arms of the glass Venetian chandeliers were broken. Carelessly pushed aside the most precious cabinets, inlaid with bronze, mother-of-pearl and ivory panels, mosaic tables of lapis lazuli, malachite and green, yellow, black and pink marbles, stood as if in an attic like lumber; the arazzi of Saul and David, Esther, Holofernes, Solomon, were no longer alive with the emotion of the figures, smothered as they were under the thick grey layer of dust that covered their perished fabric and neutralised all colour.

Through the immense rooms, in their curtained semi-darkness, there wafted something like a sadness, a melancholy of bitterness, hopeless, vanquished, a slow extinction of greatness and grandeur; among the masterpieces of the most famous painters there were sad gaps, pointing to an acute shortage of money, to paintings, despite everything, sold off for a fortune … Cornélie remembered an incident of a few years ago involving a court case, an attempt to send Raphaels out of the country illegally and sell them in Berlin … And Gilio guided her through the spectral rooms, as cheerful as a young boy, light-hearted as a child, happy to have a diversion, mentioning names to her hurriedly, without love or interest, which he had heard in his childhood, but still making mistakes, correcting himself, and finally admitting with a laugh that he had forgotten.

“And here is the camera degli sposi …”

He searched through the bunch of keys, reading the copper tags, and when he had opened the creaking door, they went inside.

There was a suddenly intense, exquisite, glorious feeling of intimacy: a large bedroom, all in gold, all matt gold, tarnished and perished and softened gold thread; on the walls gold-coloured arazzi : the birth of Venus from the golden foam of a golden ocean, Venus with Mars, Venus with Adonis, Venus with Cupid: the pale pink nakedness of mythology flowering for a moment in nothing but a golden atmosphere and ambience, in gold bunches among gold flowers; and cupids and swans and wild boar in gold; gold peacocks at gold fountains; water and clouds of elemental gold, and all the gold with a patina and perished and softened into a single languorous sunset of dying rays: the four-poster bed, gold under a canopy of gold brocade on which the family coats-of-arms were embroidered in heavy relief: the gold bedspread, but all the gold lifeless, all the gold reduced to a melancholy of an almost greying glimmer, erased, swept away, jaded, as if the dusty centuries had cast a shadow, spread a cobweb over it.

“How beautiful!” said Cornélie.

“Our famous bridal chamber,” laughed the prince. “Strange idea those ancestors of ours had, to sleep in such a remarkable room on their first night. If they married into our family, they slept here on their first night. It was a kind of superstition. The young woman would only stay faithful if she had spent the first night here with her husband. Poor Urania! We did not sleep here, signora mia , among all those indecent goddesses of love. We no longer observe the family tradition. Urania is destined by fate to be unfaithful to me. Unless I take that fate upon myself …”

“I expect no mention was made in the family tradition of the faithfulness of the men?”

“No, not much importance was attached to it — then or now.”

“It is wonderful,” repeated Cornélie, looking round. “How marvellous Duco will find this. Oh prince, I have never seen a room like this! Look at Venus there with the wounded Adonis, his head in her lap, the nymphs lamenting … It’s a fairy tale …”

“There’s too much gold for me …”

“Perhaps that’s what it used to be like, too much gold …”